View full size(The Birmingham News illustration / Wayne Marshall)TUSCALOOSA -- A heavy spender with a penchant for natty attire, Larry Langford used his position as president of the Jefferson County Commission to trade county business for cash and gifts, prosecutors said Tuesday in opening statements of Langford's federal corruption trial.

Langford's attorneys described him as the victim of greedy Wall Street bankers and unscrupulous clothing merchants -- a public servant who was trusting of longtime friends but was "stabbed in the back."

The contrasting images came as Langford, now Birmingham's mayor, entered the second day of his trial on 60 counts of bribery, money laundering and fraud, charges that could carry fines and years in prison.

The trial, expected to last two weeks, resumes at 9 a.m. today.

"This is a case about a wheeling and dealing politician who sold out the public trust to an investment banker for $240,000 in fancy clothes and jewelry," said Assistant U.S. Attorney George Martin during his opening statement. "He was deeply in debt and liked to buy expensive items on credit."

Langford's legal team countered with the tale of a politician who was victimized by bankers he trusted but who tried to manipulate Langford without his knowledge.

Lead Langford lawyer Michael Rasmussen told the jury in his opening that the mayor was longtime friends with the people testifying against him, and didn't know they were using him while offering cash, gifts and arranging otherwise unobtainable loans.

"What he got was a deal with the devil and stabbed in the back," Rasmussen said.

Packed courtroom

The mayor attended the trial in U.S. District Court in Tuscaloosa with his wife and a handful of friends. During breaks, Langford went outside to smoke, and joked and exchanged small talk with bystanders.

The trial is being held in the courthouse's largest courtroom, and it was packed to its 100-spectator capacity for most of the day.

The government called witnesses Tuesday to show that investment banker Bill Blount went to great lengths to get money to Langford. According to testimony, Blount -- who has pleaded guilty in the case and whose investment bank reaped $7.1 million in fees from Jefferson County bond deals -- intervened on Langford's behalf at the highest levels of what was once one of the state's largest banks.

Karyn Cope Hughes, former chief credit officer of Montgomery-based Colonial BancGroup, testified that Blount and Colonial board member Milton McGregor, a gambling advocate and operator of the Birmingham Race Course greyhound track, tried to get Langford a $75,000 loan from the bank.

"Bill Blount asked me to do it," Cope Hughes said under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lloyd Peeples.

Cope Hughes testified she and Blount, who were dating in 2002 and 2003, exchanged a series of e-mails that detailed their attempts to get Colonial Chairman and Chief Executive Bobby Lowder to sign off on a loan for Langford. McGregor, referred to as "Uncle Milty" in the e-mails, was unable to deliver the loan, Cope Hughes said.

Langford didn't get the loan because he had already borrowed $50,000 from the bank, a loan also arranged by Blount. The $50,000 loan was paid off by lobbyist Al LaPierre with a loan LaPierre obtained from Colonial. LaPierre then paid off his loan with money supplied by Blount, testimony showed.

Langford's credit score, Cope Hughes testified, was too low to permit another loan on its own merits.

McGregor was a major contributor to Langford's 2007 run for the Birmingham mayor's office. Land controlled by MacGregor's Birmingham greyhound track was at one point favored by Langford as the location for a domed stadium.

Money for clothes

Langford needed money in 2002 and 2003 because he was deeply in debt, according to the government.

Richard Pizitz, chief financial officer of the company that owns Birmingham clothing store Gus Mayer, said Langford paid the company $44,000 to settle an overdue bill shortly after securing a $50,000 loan from Colonial in 2002. Langford also returned 65 shirts he had bought on credit, Pizitz said.

Remon Danforah, owner of Remon's, The Gentleman's Clothier in Birmingham, also testified Tuesday. He said Langford never entered his downtown store until 2005, when he came in accompanied by Blount and LaPierre, who has also pleaded guilty in the case and is expected to testify that he paid bribes to the mayor.

"They said Larry Langford wants clothes and that I should give him what he wants and that they would take care of it," Danforah testified. In the end, he said, the pair paid him almost $55,000 for Langford's clothing selections.

All told, Langford accepted $236,000 in bribes from Blount and LaPierre, the government says. In return, it says, he made sure Montgomery's Blount Parrish & Co. investment bank was awarded more than $7 million in fees for advising on the structure and public sale of the bonds that Jefferson County issued to raise money for sewer repair and expansion.

That bond debt has swelled to $3.9 billion and threatens the state's most populous county with bankruptcy.

Testimony ended Tuesday with Birmingham city finance director Steve Sayler on the stand. Sayler, who held the same job with Jefferson County when Langford was president of the County Commission, told Martin that Langford introduced Blount and Norm Davis, a former financial adviser to the county, as people he relied on for financial advice.

Sayler also testified that county officials underestimated the cost to repair the county's sewer system. Sayler's testimony will resume today.

Defense statement

After the government presents its case, Langford's lawyers will be able to call witnesses.

The opening statement of Rasmussen, Langford's lawyer, yielded some insight into what the defense is planning:

Rasmussen told the jury that while Blount collected more than $7 million for investment banking services, Langford didn't even collect $250,000 in what the government calls bribes. "Some conspiracy," he scoffed.

Blount and Langford had been friends for years, Rasmussen said. The mayor can't help it if his friend is wealthy, wants to buy him clothes and jewelry, and then turns on him, he said.

"This isn't about bribery," the lawyer said. "It is about having a multimillionaire for a friend who stabs you in the back."

Some of what the government calls bribes were legitimate loans taken out by Langford and secured with his partial interest in a $1.5 million land parcel in Hoover near the Riverchase Galleria, Rasmussen said. Langford was added as a partner in the land deal though he didn't contribute money to the venture.

"The only perspective that counts is Larry Langford's," Rasmussen, a former federal prosecutor in Birmingham, told the jury. "His is the only perspective you are judging."